November 1994

This is the inside page of a 1936 QSL folder from NIROM, the Netherlands Indies Broadcasting Co., Ltd., Batavia (now Jakarta), Indonesia. The organization started broadcasting officially on March 31, 1934 with four stations, and grew to 22 in 18 months. The most powerful transmitter was the "Archipelago" station in Batavia. The Batavia and Surabaya stations used non-directional antennas. The NIROM station in Bandung transmitted to Sumatra, Borneo and the Celebes on 10260 and 11000 kHz. NIROM often picked up broadcasts from Holland by way of a receiving station near Batavia, and then relayed them via the various transmitters. The Netherlands Indies adopted the European system whereby listeners paid NIROM a fixed fee per month through the post office. "Owing to unfavourable atmospherics existing in the tropics, no wave length above 200 metres can be used. The long distance stations use wave lengths below 100 metres, local stations between 100-200 metres." Judging by the powers listed on this QSL, most any NIROM logging would have been very good DX indeed.